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Comment by spoonjim | Hacker News Reader

I have very strong beliefs about the death penalty. I believe it is the only just punishment for murder; that ALL murderers should be executed; that anything less than execution is a grave miscarriage of justice for a crime that is so horrible the mind cannot even wrap around it. I also think that pain should be part of the death penalty... that a murderer doesn’t deserve a quick and painless death but rather a healthy period of searing agony to experience the anguish that they themselves wrought on another.

However I believe that there is too big a gulf between “murderers” and “people convicted of murderer”; that the crime of killing is so severe that doing it to an innocent person is a miscarriage of justice far graver than any underpunishment of murderers; and so I oppose the death penalty in all forms as a matter of law.

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What if they did the murder because of a brain tumor messing up their impulse control ability? Humans are just complicated machines that go wrong sometimes. I do however share your emotional position and it would make me feel better to see (actual) murderers get the death penalty.

Someone disabled to the point of having no compass for right and wrong would have what is legally known as “diminished mental capacity” and not be convicted of first degree murder.

If you genuinely hallucinate that I am an attacking Pit Bull and kill me, you are not guilty of first degree murder and I would not want you executed.

> “diminished mental capacity”

As we learn more about neuroscience, every murderer will look like they have "diminished mental capacity". This legal construct is merely a statement of our ignorance to understand what's actually going on in their brain.

Sure, free will may not exist, but we don’t have much of a civilization if we don’t pretend that it does.

The criminal justice system can still function without the false premise of free will and agency, and without the false premise that someone with a brain tumor magically has less agency than someone without a brain tumor but who has some more complicated and less understood problem with their brain.

It can be premised on concepts such as rehabilitation (which I believe mostly can't happen with murderers), deterrence, creating a sense of fairness in society (which builds trust), protecting people from the murderer, and so on.

It might not go that bad. But I suspect that as medical imaging hardware becomes better, we'll eventually face a crisis point: we'll be forced to re-evaluate most of what we call "character traits" and reclassify them as neurochemistry quirks. This is an important distinction, because as a society, we tend to hold people responsible for their character, but not for bugs in their brain.

We can already see some of this today. Many people that would've been shunned by society in the past as "unstable" and "crazy", can be fixed by giving them lithium. We know not to fault a person for what's just a bug in their hardware. Similarly, many people that today are called "lazy" or "annoying", and blamed for their obviously flawed character, can be instantly fixed by low doses of stimulant medication. This is something most people didn't get a memo on yet.

I find it highly likely that most homicides are also driven by fixable neurochemistry quirks, and that we'll learn to identify and fix them at some point, and we'll be appalled at the ease with which we jumped to killing people for having them.

How do we choose to pretend free will exists?

By rewarding people who help others and punishing people who hurt others.

They're still a danger to society. If we start crossing into the metaphysical then we'd have to make excuses for peadophiles having 'messed up impulse control' too.

But as another comment pointed out, we do account for this.

> They're still a danger to society

Which is one of the reasons why we have incarceration, which I believe is absolutely necessary in some form in a case where a person is a danger to others (whether or not it's "their fault").

> we'd have to make excuses for peadophiles having 'messed up impulse control' too.

It's not an excuse, it's more a description of reality. And it would apply to child abusers as well, as well as other criminals, yes.

This isn't an argument against "punishing" these people. It's an argument for being clear about why we are "punishing" them, to make sure it's not a revenge motive (which is a heavily biologically driven motive in itself)

It’s not metaphysical, there are documented cases of biological causes (tumor) causing pedophilia: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2943-brain-tumour-cau...

> They're still a danger to society.

That's a different argument. The OP said it he'd like muderers to have a fate similar to their victims, basically as revenge. When executing someone for this reason, their guilt clearly does matter - someone who enjoys killing is far worse than someone with a medical condition. Whether their death is 'practical' is a different matter.

Murder already has one of the lowest recidivism rates of crimes. Murderers typically don't murder again. And that's mostly because murder is a heat of the moment crime. Planned murders are fairly rare.

If you seriously wanted to use the death penalty to deter crime, you'd do better executing people for smaller offenses. If you got executed for drunk driving rather than a fine, there would be less drunk driving.

Not saying that's a good thing. But if you're looking to deter crime, executing murderers is not actually a good way to go about it.

Nothing about my opinion is based on the existence or non-existence of a deterrent effect.

I'm happy with the conclusion you have reached, but boy is your first paragraph terrifying. It seems that you're conflating justice and accountability with revenge.

> I believe it is the only just punishment for murder; that ALL murderers should be executed;

That's such a twisted mind you have there.

Why does a murderer deserve another breath?

Just lacked therapy. Murderer was a cop, and made a mistake. Murderer was provoked. Family of murderee forgives murderer. Murderee was merely an 3 months old embryo. Evidence not 100% conclusive. Murderer claims self defense.

I can continue. The world is messy. Black white thinking will not do it justice.

Not that I agree with these reasons in all circumstances. I just want to point out there are reasons to treat a murderer less harsh.

They're human. Revenge has no place in civilized society.

“Revenge has no place in a civilized society” is just an opinion. Mine is different. I don’t believe a society is civilized if it treats murderers with anything less than the most extreme vengeance.

Then the world would be better off without you.

That may be, but I can tell you without whom the world would be MUCH better off: murderers.

Which is why incarceration exists. The death penalty was necessary back when society simply couldn't afford prisons, but not today.

Which civilized society? In which baby Bush "finishes off" what papa Bush started?

What kind of argument is this? You're already barbarians so might as well be consistent?

It's more like: I see a pattern.

Because I care deeply about everybody – no matter what they have done. Because forgiveness and love are my core values, even if it doesn't usually show up in my day to day life. Because revenge is always bad. Torturing somebody no matter their crime would go fundamentally against those few things that I feel very deeply about – not that different from loving my family or caring about the longterm wellbeing of humanity.

If that sounds irrational to you: That's because it is irrational. Whether we choose to end another persons life is fundamental in our understanding of life itself, which is highly subjective.

But your belief that we should kill other humans is also irrational and subjective.

Edit: Also this paragraph in your first answer

>> I also think that pain should be part of the death penalty... that a murderer doesn’t deserve a quick and painless death but rather a healthy period of searing agony to experience the anguish that they themselves wrought on another."

is actually terrifying to me. Even reading it causes me some physical discomfort.

What if your love and forgiveness allow a killer to strike again? I share similar values but I'm prepared to compromise on them if necessary. Even incarceration is a compromise. Values are ideals, not absolutes.

I agree that incarceration is a necessary compromise and of course I don't want a killer to strike again. Forgiveness doesn't mean that I'm against all punishment. But I think that it means there always has to be a chance for somebody to change – no matter what they did. Even life sentences without any chance of parole should not be possible: if somebody is no longer a danger to society they should be allowed to return at some point.

Please don't post flamebait or take HN threads into generic ideological arguments. They are exceedingly repetitive and convince no one—they just get people activated and angry. This place is for curious conversation.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I can somehow understand that argument, "Eye for an eye" and all that, kind of makes sense.

Later on is where things gets scary though, where even death is not enough and it needs to be agonized death!

> I also think that pain should be part of the death penalty [...] rather a healthy period of searing agony

It is beyond fucked up to not only wanting to execute people but also make sure they feel pain while doing so.

Whoa - going straight to personal attack like that is not allowed here, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are.

Look at it this way: comments like what you posted here take the community further into hell war, which destroys the community. Even if you don't feel you owe the other commenter better, you definitely owe the community better if you're participating in it. The ecosystem is fragile—we all need to protect it. Setting it on fire because of how wrong you feel someone is is not a good idea.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

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